Nexus between Beliefs College English Instructors’ Held about Teaching Reading Strategies and their Classroom Practice

Abstract

This study examined connections between beliefs college English language instructors’held about reading strategies and their classroom application in teaching reading. Thesites of the target population for this study were students in the Colleges of TeacherEducation in Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia. In this region, there are tenAdministrative Zones each having one College of Teacher Education. Debre Birhan,Sekotta, Gondar and Debre Markos were selected by simple random sampling techniqueusing lots. From the fourcolleges, twenty-sixinstructors were selected by simple randomsampling technique using lot. Data were collected through close-ended questionnaireitems and structured observation checklist. Data gathered through questionnaire wereanalysed using percentage. One sample t-test was employed to analyse data obtainedfrom classroom observations. The findings indicated that college instructors held strongand positive beliefs about English language reading strategies. However, findingsconfirmed that instructors do not actually apply strategies, such asteaching keyvocabulary in the pre-reading phase, skimming, predicting about the text to read,guessing the meaning of unknown words, scanning the text, how to comprehend textread, summarising the text read and so on in teaching reading. From the findings, itcould be inferred that it would be useful if instructors adjust their beliefs to practices. Tohelp instructors match their beliefs to their practice, there seems a need to train them onreading strategies. Training instructors may acquaint them with the necessary steps andtechniques of teaching reading appropriately.